Anyone off the grid?

For me, solar power and propane is 'off-grid' enough. I would be happy to cut the electric company out of my life....I'm just trying to mentally build up to spending 20 grand on a system.

I can't see doing without a fridge/freezer or running water. I would have to dig a root cellar to store my veggies and smoke/salt my meats which isn't the healthiest or the most cost effective....or the best use of my time. The internet has been an invaluable asset in researching information for me. I'd like to cut my power use to the absolute minimum while still enjoying the very basic conveniences.

When we looked at this property, at first we didn't realize it was off the grid. We wanted to live in the forest. Not to have houses next door and across the road. To have privacy, but not be too far from a town. Finding out it was off the grid was a pleasant surprise! I did not and do not plan to live like Laura Ingalls. I like technology. We have lived without many essentials due to clearing the land, remodeling the house, after all it was a hunting camp.

Our power system has not cost us a lot of money. Every year we have added to it and done more work. Not rich, so we do it little by little. The thing is, there are no rules to living the modern homesteading lifestyle. The same is true of living off the grid. Do what you want. Use what you want and pay for what you want. One of the biggest reasons that we wanted to be off the grid isn't anything to do with the money, but with the independence. Never had an outage in all the years we have been here. Even when 300 trees came down on our property from a tornado. What is important to me, may not be important to someone else. I liked figuring out how to handle different ways to do things. Now I'm on to phasing out the propane.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

. . . "Where will I be when the rates skyrocket"

Well huddled right here enjoying the electrical energy that my Wind & PV system generates. Stuff like freezers, fridg's, 220 vac well pump, lights, tools, air compressor, puter, Vita Mix blender, furnace . . . . .
Just the usual stuff that makes life easier....today...

Yes, I have reached the age where all those "things" do make life easier...........

Yes, I still enjoy reading / talking yester-year and the all manual living . .hardships and all.

My great great grandparents homesteaded in Kearny (sp) Nebraska . . . in a sod shelter/home......

I have good friends who are hooked to the grid but have a solar system also. They power their tvs, stereos, computers and lights with their solar system. It has cut their power bill for many years now. They are not grid tied, so when the grid power is down they can plug their refrigerator into their system to keep it going.

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Homesteading On The Internet
Solar Baby
Reflections of katlupe

Interesting discussion.

We are hoping to build from scratch in the next three years. I was wondering, if we planned it in...could we wire for both? I mean could we wire our essentials: fridge and freezer and possibly a well for solar and the rest on grid? My kids might be living with us after graduation. One son, in particular, is looking into a computer or game design career. He uses a lot of electricity. Anyway...is it possible to do both?

Thanx,
Prairiebird

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"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good...thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array."

You don't really have to wire fir solar unless you are planning to go low voltage. Most solar systems include an inverter to 120 240vac. A lower cost option for solar if you are starting small is a grid tie solar setup. It allows you to use all your solar generated energy and only grid power for your shortages like night time high consumption and cloudy days. They even sell micro inverters that run about $200 each and one goes on the back of each panel or pair of panels depending on your setup. These are nice because the wiring is more dimple and if one panel is underperforming the rest don't suffer.
Look to spend about $10k for every $30 of electric you use each month. That is DIY install price.

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Sold the farm no more critters
I have a postage stamp lot now
I aim to make it the most organic productive 1/3 acre in southwest Missouri
With a 20 acre plot to be added in 3 years or so

Ah.... I thought there might be some do-it-yourself-ers on here... and there are, just no electricity wizards. My husband will do our house and he said it would only be about 6K. We pay around $100 in the summer months and $200 in the winter with our stock tank heaters. You can go partially off the grid and leave your stove and washing machine on the grid and pay a minimal bill too as an option. You can use an old windmill off a farm or put a three foot one on top of your house- that is not the expensive part. I have seen the 20k systems and they aren't necessary.

If Cap and trade passes, that will cause electricity rates to skyrocket, although they could just skyrocket because Obama wants them too. The government is gunning for huge electricity hikes. We are extremely modern here and wouldn't do without the conveniences. My husband works out of our house as a field engineer so I am not referring to being a minimalist in any way.

Solar energy sounds more expensive than what we were planning.
I am not looking to reduce my energy consumption or live poorly, only to create my own energy.

I wouldn't put a turbine on a roof for 2 reasons. Fisrt the roof will cause turbulance so the turbine should be way above it and second the spinning can often transmit a vibration into the house causing it to hum.

I just wish they would make a propane/natural gas fired residential AC unit (they make commercial sized versions). My parents are off grid and they are getting older; I will like to get them something to take the edge off the hotest part of the summer. After I get my barn built (at their place), I may just line the dang thing with as many panels as I can get, a heck of a bank of batteries, and find the most efficient window unit as I can and hope I have enough juice to power it to keep a bedroom cool.

... and those 'little 3 ft turbines' are going to produce very little useful power. And if you want to hear from the 'electrical wizards', try posting in the Alternative Energy section...

$6K will buy you a small system that may generate 60% of your power needs, if you live in a small house with no kids and are very conservative with your power use. Forget AC, and buy the most efficient fridge possible. But you will still run short of power in the dead of winter.

I believe there are propane fired AC units made for the RV market... havent checked in awhile.
We have 1.1KW of solar, and on a clear sunny day we can run a small window unit AC, which will take the edge off the heat and humidity...during the day. Not enough juice to have a 600watt AC running constantly during the night.
We are getting an underground powerline run next week. I installed a transfer switch so we can still use the solar panels and inverter when possible.

Solar does better in winter because solar panels are more efficient in cool weather. You do need sunshine and the shorter days may off set some efficiency. If you don't plan on conserving and living minimalist your are looking at $75k and up.
The system I spoke of before was at 2kw system. It was 10 200 watt panels and 10 220 watt enphase micro inverters. On eBay the panels will run $500 to $700 each and the inverters will run $200 ish each. The racking if you go cheap will run $1000 at Lowes for lumber and you'll need a bunch of wire and j boxes a cut off switch and some other parts. So figure $10k for every 2000 watts of power you need. Not conserving you'll want 8k to 10k watts of power and good weather. In good weather when your gone you'll sell power back to the utility. In my area they give about $0.04. Then they charge about $0.10 for the power they sell me.
I opted not to go with solar after much planning and study. I went as far as getting a grid tie permit with my utility and drawing up the schematics indiagram form for them. I had a system sourced from a web based company out of miami which had the best price at that time that I could find.
I am not closed to alternative energy, but with the system quality and durability you could take the same $10k and invest properly and replace more of your utility bill than the $30 that solar would do. Now that investment may be in mutual funds or land and livestock or any number of things. But I believe power conservation and physical responsibility will gain you a better return.

__________________
Sold the farm no more critters
I have a postage stamp lot now
I aim to make it the most organic productive 1/3 acre in southwest Missouri
With a 20 acre plot to be added in 3 years or so

True, to a point. But in an off-grid situation, there is the issue of energy storage. Battery technology is the weak link, and over the lifetime of the system, may prove to be the most expensive part. Batteries dont last forever, figure 5-7 years for a set of flooded lead acid deep cycle batteries. For example, in our system, we have 8 batteries, L-16s. These are about $200 apiece. Now if I get 5 years out of them, that works out to about $26 a month to replace them. Which is pretty much the monthly fee to have grid-tied electrical service around here.

I'll have to check the RV supply and see about that. My parents have way less than 1.1KW, they mostly depend on the propane genset except in most sunny weather (they run the genset probably every other day during the cloudy grey parts of winter). I'm going to plus them up to about 2kw along with one of those new charge controllers after I get my barn up and gun vault poored; the bulk of this will be for the house but part of it will be for the barn (along with inverter, charge controller, etc) in order to run cameras, alarm system, etc.

Getting them grid power is pretty much off the table; the utilities wanted $60,000 plus clearing a mile of right away 15 years ago. I bet it would be at least double that now.

They are the perfect example of someone who should use solar, wind and generator. There is no other choice. THere is also a lot that could be learned from people who are able to live on very little.

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Sold the farm no more critters
I have a postage stamp lot now
I aim to make it the most organic productive 1/3 acre in southwest Missouri
With a 20 acre plot to be added in 3 years or so

We wouldn't be using a turbine per se, not the kind that comes to everyone's mind, nor would we be purchasing a "system." My husband is an electrical wizard; I just thought it would be nice to chat with some other guys who have pulled it together from scratch for a few tips. No big deal. I didn't know there was an alternative energy forum on here. Is that for liberals or just cheap people like us?

Ah.

Now we're getting more to the meat of the matter.

The alternative energy forum herein caters to the big money, high tech crowd.
Do-it-yourselfers need not apply.
If your husband is a self-proclaimed and accomplished electrical wiz, relish in that, but don't expect any kudos or high fives here.
We backwoods energy folks are largely on our own.

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“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater.
III

I personally love alternative energy. I bought my wife a prius, and I drive a dodge ram with a cummins that I use bio fuel wehn ever possible. The problem is I am a cheap skate. I researched solar for a year even joined a few solar and alternative energy forums. IF you are going with alternative energy to code it is not cheap. In fact it likely wont ever work out to be cheaper if the equipment doesnt at least double the estimated lifespan. I really wish it would. If anyone on here has different information please share. I just wanted to save you the trouble of a year of digging and searching.
Now if you are super handy adn want to build home made panels and can scavenge most of the materials for free or super cheap, and if you go DC and dont need inverters, and if you can aoide batteries, or find cheap ones and rebuild them cheaply, then I suppose it is possible. But youll want good smoke detectors and and cheap house, insurance wont cover a fire form non code alternative energy. That includes windmills and solar. I suspect if you had good water flow a microhydro system might get close to affordable. I did not research it other than reading a few articles.
By the way contrary to the belief of many of my friends, I am not a Liberal. Yes we drive a prius, yes I recycle 90% of what we use, yes I am into alternative energy, passive solar heating and cooling, yes I garden and raise better than organic protein. But my ideals are deeply conservative. I believe in God, and life for all, I believe in smaller less intrusive government, I believe in a homeland security, I believe the government already takes far too much of what it's citizens produce. BUt I believe that part of being conservative is that one should actually conserve. Conserve land, resources, money, life, family. So maybe as I describe it I am not a good fit in any party, I dont know.
I do respect your desire to find out about alternatives. I dont mean for my comments to discourage that spirit. I also dont think you should take my words as gospel. BUt just beware of smake oil salesmen, there are plenty that can sell ice to inuits. ALternative energy doesnt work out to be the cheapskate way, it is a lifestyle. Much like owning a pool or a farm. I own both and neither saves me money, but I or my family enjoy one or the other, Ill let you guess which is which.
Best of luck with your endevor. I sincerely hope you find a way to make your dream work.

__________________
Sold the farm no more critters
I have a postage stamp lot now
I aim to make it the most organic productive 1/3 acre in southwest Missouri
With a 20 acre plot to be added in 3 years or so